Karl Popper

Karl Popper 1902-1994

Karl Popper is relevant to the Innocence Project in his way of thinking.

He was born in Austria and worked as a lecturer in New Zealand then came over to the UK and worked at the University of London. He lived in Vienna during the Golden Age that was important for philosophy as he was around during the Vienna Circle, Freud, Jung, Wittgenstein etc.

His book Logic of Science Discovery attacked the Empiricism, Logical positivists. Open Society and it’s enemies attacks- Tribalism, Plato (Hobbes and Marx) and all Utopianism. The Property of Historicism attacked Marx and Hegel (anti- teleological).

Logical Positivism- Vienna Circle- Reaction against Romantic Movement – wanted to use Science to clear up philosophy.  He tried to find a principle of demarcation (a method that’s clear) between statements of Science (what makes sense and what doesn’t). His conclusion was that statements that cannot be verified as ‘gibberish’. Metaphysical statements have no meanings because they cannot be verified (factual claim).

Wittgenstein decided ‘of which we can not speak, we must remain silent.’ Here Descartes is rejected ‘I think therefore I am’ contains a non- verifiable induction. There are no facts that can be tested in this statement so Ayer rewrote this to ‘there are ideas’. This is verifiable unless Solipsism applies. Solipsism says that everything is a construction, elaborate imagination. The danger of all Empiricists is that if something is true nothing can be verified which means that nothing at all can be true.

Empiricism- Aristotle, Locke- ‘blank slate no innate knowledge’

Popper didn’t see himself as a Logical Positivist (LP), Otto nicknamed him ‘the official opposition.’ In LP, verifiability was the criteria of demarcation between meaningful and meaningless statements that makes sense if it can be proved by meaning.

Popper thought Scientific Theories couldn’t be proved because of the theory of induction. He thought the logical positivists were on the wrong track. The thing that marked out Science was it’s potential to be falsified.

‘All men are mortal’ cannot be falsified because there I no finite number of observations. It is possible for someone to live forever in the future so the statement is falsified by the presentation of one dead person.

Problem of Induction- ‘Hume’s Problem’ 

David Hume argued that induction was unreliable. We cannot help thinking in terms of them because of how we are physiologically constructed. We can’t predict what will happen in the future so all we can do is set up an experiment and make observations (educated guess- Bacon). Hume decided that Science just didn’t make sense.

‘Hume’s problem baffled philosophers’- Russell HWP P162. Hume has proved that pure Empiricism is not a basis for Science… without the principle of induction, then Science is impossible.

It is claimed that Popper’s achievement has been to offer an acceptable solution to the problem of induction. Einstein’s theory provided a model of how Science progressed so that people can test what he is saying. In 1919 his Eclipse test was tested and passed. But if it had failed the test he would have given up the theory altogether. This contrasts with the Freudians and Marxists who would have just changed the theory slightly.

Newton’s Principia was a unified theory about the ordinary happenings in the physical world. This was knowledge of a kind that had never been possible before. A whole era of civilization had been based on it, and had been successful.

What Einstein did was to take the best knowledge that has been confirmed and say it is wrong. What we believe is potentially untrue, Journalists have to assume what we hear is potentially untrue e.g. the internet today is seen to be the best thing however we know in years to come something else will be better.

Popper realized that the best knowledge in Science was not justified it was not a true belief. He believed that even when a scientific principle had been successfully repeated and tested it was not necessarily true. However it had not been proved yet but it still isn’t false. This is the theory of Falsification. For example cutting a piece of wood will never be exact but you strive to be as exact as you can. All of our knowledge is fallible as you can never tell what needed correction.

Popper said Science worked by induction anyway. Science begins with conjecture, we have biological and social pre-dispositions. John Locke knows nothing except through observation. There is no blank canvas we just have an idea of how it might work but reality changes this. Observation is always selective as we inherit the past and cannot escape it. We achieve objectivity by exposing our ideas to criticism. We always have something to learn from other people essentially social objectivity.

Open society and its enemies

This idea claims to knowledge we are often seen as justification for the authority of rulers. Think of the philosopher kings from Plato’s republic. This has been passed down to us- that the expert should be in charge. The answer to the problem induction is guess work is not needed you should use the falsify principle or leave your ideas open for falsification.

At the beginning, Popper was more famous for his politics rather than his scientific ideas. Power- rulers should be removable without violence however Popper believed it could be used to defend democracy. It was believed that people who ruled needed to be highly educated. This attacks Plato who said knowledge is probably not knowledge as there is an unknown quantity. ‘The paradox of democracy’ isn’t true as democracy can destroy itself. The government in power should be removed if it is infallible. Popper believes it is right to protect free institutions against attack.

A tolerant society must be prepared to suppress the enemies of tolerance. The state policies suggest that the government should worry about problems. They should try and minimize suffering to be predominantly problem solvers. Instead of thinking of building a Utopia it’s important to contrast it with the Utilitarian principle.

Conspiracy theories were the new superstition. Popper thought people were easily won over by theories that appear to explain everything. This meant that the world was full of verifications of the theory. A Marxist could not open the paper without finding evidence confirmed for this interpretation of history. If the paper did not mention the issue, it must have been suppressed. Freudian’s could explain away any human behavior such as if you are celibate you are repressed. If God proved his presence then we wouldn’t need to believe which we know is kind of the obvious really. The idea needs to be open in order to be falsified.

David Locke was a sports reporter until he came up with his conspiracy theory of the Lizards and the Jews which is flexible and open to falsification.